


Go Forth And Have No Fear

by PsycoticLollipop



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsycoticLollipop/pseuds/PsycoticLollipop
Summary: Riko had stolen Exy from him. So Kevin had stolen the last remnant of the perfect court. A dream for a dream.Because he’s an absolute idiot that apparently hasn’t learned a single thing in the thirteen years he spent at The Nest. And Jean had gone with him because… well, he must have a reason. Someone as broken as Jean wouldn’t make such a bold move if he didn’t expect to get something out of it. The point, whatever their motives,  is that now Kevin is a ruined investment that has stolen Moriyama propriety. And he would be very surprised if such a slight was left unanswered.This is a Kevin takes Jean with him when he runs to the foxes AU.





	1. It’s our time to make a move, It’s our time to make amends

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so, even if everything turned out allright int he end, with Jean joining the Trojans and Kevin adjusting to the Foxes, I've always resented Kevin a lot for leaving Jean behind. So I was wondering, what if, what if. Turns out 3k of roadtrips and introspection in, I might not hate him as much as expected. 
> 
> English is not my native language!

The highway lights are a blur on his peripheral vision. Somehow too harsh and real and soft and far away at the same time. If he were someone else, Kevin might have thought that the edges of the world seeming so fragile right now was a metaphor of some kind. The physical manifestation of a bold move. Proof that fate wasn’t written in stone. That choices can truly shake the foundation of reality.

But he’s Kevin Day and his hand is beating inside the cast with an angry pulse that probably means you’re not supposed to do so much stressful shit the day after an operation. And he knows the unrealness around him is very much caused by the painkillers he took or the cheap vodka Jean bought at the gas station and he used to swallow them down.

The purr of the car below them is the only sound filling the space. The wheels hitting the gravel, the occasional mosquito finding a sudden death against the front windshield. It’s so silent he can hear his own teeth clenching and Jean’s iddle fingers tapping a broken rhythm against the wheel. The sky sits dark and immense above them. Untouchable by the weak car lights. Out of reach it expands and expands and expands and it’s making him dizzy. It’s too open, too big, too filled with possibilities he thought didn’t exist for him. For either of them. 

He reaches for the radio before he can properly think about what he’s doing and within seconds there’s a mellow voice taking up space in the car. He’s hyperconscious of every word but doesn’t know the song or the singer or even the radio station. He can’t remember the last time he listened to music, actually listen instead of letting it fade to the background of the photocall or the talk show or using it to silence the screams of his teammates. 

He lets the singer’s voice raise and drop and carry something akin to contentedness into his chest. He can feel the half empty bottle of vodka sitting in the floor between his feet with a steady weight. As the singer let’s his voice drift away and the song draws to an end, Kevin is abruptly shaken with the knowledge than he can change the station. If he doesn’t like the next song he can reach out and lower the volume or change the station or stop the music altogether. 

This time it’s the voice of a woman cutting through distant piano music. It’s soft and constant and far away. He’s thinking of putting his very recent station-changing abilities to a test when Jean’s hand tentatively parts ways with the wheel. It hovers in the air, mere inches away from it as if he wasn’t sure of what he was doing with it. As if he wasn’t sure if what he was going to do was worth it or he should pass the movement of as a stretch, let it dissolve into nothingness. 

Kevin waits with a stillness he usually reserves for moments of skyrocketing anxiety where it takes effort to make his body remember that it’s inhabited and can’t just quit on him like that. Jean’s hand is visibly trembling when it reaches the dial and raises the volume and white-knuckled when he grabs the wheel again. Kevin makes an effort to hum appreciatively to the action even though he doubts anything he does can get through to Jean when he’s this tightly wired. 

They’re four hours and eighteen minutes away from Virginia and Kevin isn’t sure if the distance feels freeing or if it’s choking all the air out of him. Everything he is and knows screams that this is a mistake. That they’ll find them. That Kevin is a ruined investment that stole from them. That there’s nowhere far enough that Moriyama money can’t reach him. That maybe, maybe if he comes back he can still fix it. He can’t play but he could coach. He could still do publicity. He could go back to the person that stole his only reason for living and watch him conquer their dreams. He could let the poison kill him slowly instead of their bullets and knives killing him fast. 

But there’s a part of him. Tiny and terrified and six years old that still remembers his mother. That remembers tender touches and laughs and games. That remembers there were things beside exy before and maybe they’re still out there now. Maybe if he reaches far enough, if he tries hard enough, he can be the son his mother would have raised and not the shadow of a person he is now. 

He can see his own doubts on Jean’s eyes every time they flicker to the rearview mirror. And that’s probably what keeps his ass sat on the passenger seat and his mouth shut. Because if he has nothing left to lose then Jean never had anything to begin with and is risking much more than him. 

Kevin is not quite sure why he’s here. Other than the fact that Kevin outright lied to him, asked to be driven to a pharmacy to buy painkillers and only told him about the duffle bags and Coach Wymack’s offer when they were well into town, away from Edgar Allen. 

He doesn’t know why Jean has driven for over four hours instead of turning the car around at the first intersection or dropping his ass in a gas station and called the Moriyamas to come pick them up. It can’t be hope because Kevin knows for sure that Jean lost the last of it years ago. It can’t be trust because Kevin has failed too many times for Jean to go along with a reckless plan just because. He can’t be trying to run away from the pain because they both know if they ever go back Riko will find a way to make every method of torture known to them seem like a children’s game. It could be affection, he guesses. He’s not sure if Riko ever managed to kill that between them. He’s not sure if it could ever have been called a friendship. He’s not sure if he remembers what affection is supposed to feel like clearly enough to make an accurate comparison. 

The original plan was to go to Wymack at the hotel as soon as they came back from the hospital. To tell him… something. He had guessed his broken hand would be a clear enough message. And then to jump on a bus with his father’s team and just leave. The plan was to get as far away from the Ravens as fast as possible. As if something as insignificant as state borders could stop The Master if he really wanted to drag him back. The original plan relied completely on the fact that he’s ruined. Without his hand he’s nothing, to himself or them or anyone important. So he expected the consequences of his actions kept Riko occupied for long enough to get out and away and for his absolute lack of value to keep them from wanting him back. 

But then as soon as they went back, Riko had called for Jean. Kevin didn’t know if he was excluded because Riko couldn’t face what he had done to him, or if he had lost all interest now that he couldn’t play. But he knew Jean would come out of it bruised and bleeding. As if destroying Kevin wasn’t enough. As if stealing exy from him wasn’t enough. 

So he had talked to Wymack. Desperate and quick in a hotel room surrounded by exy teams on all floors. And he had gone back up to their rooms and re-packed their bags and made a run for his car. And, when Jean had gone back to his room; bruised and sore as predicted, Kevin had thrown him his car keys and asked for a trip to the pharmacy.

Riko had stolen Exy from him. So Kevin had stolen the last remnant of the perfect court. Because he’s an absolute idiot that apparently hasn’t learned a single thing in the thirteen years he spent at The Nest. And Jean had gone with him because… well, he must have a reason. Someone as broken as Jean wouldn’t make such a bold move if he didn’t expect to get something out of it. The point, whatever their reasons, is that now Kevin has stolen Moriyama propriety. And he’s sure they’re going to want Jean back. 

So the plan still was to get as far away as possible as fast as possible. But logically, or ilogically perhaps, Kevin knew there was no physical distance that would mean they were safe. So he extends his right hand and grips the bottle’s neck just to make sure it’s still there, still an option is he wants it. He could always die so drunk he didn’t notice it. He takes a look at Jean’s bloodshot eyes and robotic movements and says, 

“Prends la prochaine sortie. On va à l’hôtel. C’est dangereux de conduire si longtemps sans s’arrêter.”

Jean’s lack of answer says something about either the fact that he’s so used to being ordered around that he doesn’t even think of arguing, his absolute exhaustion or the resignated knowledge that no matter where they are, the shadow looming over them is still going to be there. Kevin knows he wouldn’t ponder over it even if he were sober and his hand wasn’t begging him to just chop it off and be done with it. 

The hotel by the next exit of the highway turns out to be an architectural monstrosity with an overcomplicated construction of beige and pink walls looming over the parking lot. It looks tacky and cheap and if Kevin had ever dedicated a thought to what a shady highway stop hotel looked like, he’s sure he would have come up with something of the sort. But the man by the registration booth doesn’t ask for identification and gives them a double room in exchange for cash without unnecessary questions; so they’re not doing that bad.

Jean takes his duffle bag of the back of the car and starts walking up the stairs that lead to their room leaving him to fumble around with his bag and close the car. As he watches his retreating back, Kevin has a moment of white panic that bolts him stuck to the ground. For a moment the absolute idiocy of what he’s done -what he has made them both do- catches up to him. It leaves him tense and uneasy and climbing the stairs after Jean takes an unusual effort. He notices the cold night air for the first time as he fumbles with the room’s key and curses the extra seconds it takes him to open it with his right hand. The rage that sourges to him is both familiar and foreign and he can feel his jaw clench when the lock refuses to turn and he’s forced to grab the door knob with his left hand while he twists the key with the right. He’s not sure if it’s the pain flaring up his arm or the anger at it that warms him up. Because of course Riko didn’t have enough with stealing Exy, he had to taint everything, he had to make him freeze his ass in South Carolina in December. 

The door opens barely a couple of inches with the shove he gives it with his injured hand. It doesn’t smack against the wall or make noise at all and it isn’t nowhere near satisfying enough to be worth the pain that seems to be lightning his left arm on fire. 

Jean lets him walk inside first. Either because he doesn’t want to get in the way of his anger or because he can see the tears quickly gathering in his eyes. Kevin doesn’t care either way and just steps away from the cold shoving the door open all the way with his shoulder. 

He throws his duffle bag on the nearest bed and walks straight into the bathroom closing the door behind himself. He’s trembling by the time he reaches the sink and feeling too warm by the time ha manages to take his jacket off one handed. He grips the cheap sink with his right hand and stares at his reflection. He’s pale and sweating, probably due to the pills. His eyes stare black bloodshot and tearful. His jaw is clenching so hard he can feel his teeth starting to ache. He very purposefully doesn’t look down at his hands. 

The boy staring back from the mirror looks both familiar and impossibly unknown. Kevin recognizes his mother’s eyes and the wavy hair in the style Riko favored. He recognizes the fear in his eyes and the nervous energy coursing through him, the pale skin due to lack of exposure to the sun, the dark circles under his eyes due to lack of sleep. The unhappiness wrapping around him like an unwanted blanket.

The spark on his eyes is so unfamiliar for a long moment he’s unable to give it a name. He’s not sure he has ever seen it in his own eyes, though he can place it in others. Jean’s eyes had that spark the first time Riko hit him with an exy racquet. And the second, the fourth, the fifth. The spark had been so noticeable and Riko had hated it so fiercely he had insisted on stomping it violently until he managed to extinguish the last of it.

Thea’s eyes had that spark whenever someone questioned a woman’s place on the court. Jeremy Knox’s eyes had that spark whenever Kevin managed to get a goal past his defence line; though in a much gentle manner than Jean’s or Thea’s ever did. 

Wymack’s eyes had that spark the night he let Kevin into his hotel room, left hand trembling and held close to his chest, eyes tearful and mouth trembling. 

Kevin stares and stares, feeling like he’s precariously keeping balance on the brick of realization. But for the longest moment he’s unable to remember the word for it. There’s anger, but he’s well-acquainted with it. There’s urgency, self-righteousness, the fear he carries around like a second skin. There’s… there’s the quiet determination his mother wore everywhere. 

Kevin is reticent to say it’s determination, because he knows determination well. In the court, in his classes, with Riko. Determination is necessary to survive in The Nest. But maybe his mother’s gentle guidance and perpetual smile was fire in the same way Jean’s rebelliousness was. It had to be fire if Tetsuji hated it so fiercely he extinguished it. Maybe this is the first time Kevin sees fight in his own eyes because she always fought for him and with her gone he thought there was nothing left to fight for. 

But she left him Exy, and Riko had tried to take it away. 

He clenches his left hand and feels it pulsing inside the cast. Fire shooting up his arm straight to his chest. Warmth spreading around and disappearing lightning fast. It hurts so bad the room tilts around him and for a second he thinks he’s going to be sick. The pulse on his wrist beats with consistency, though. There’s nothing final about this pain. It hurts because it’s healing. There’s something left of her and he can cling to it with everything left of him. He has never fighted for anything but he has to fight for this. 

He opens the faucet and lets the cold water run for a few second before splashing it on his face a couple of times. He dries off with the paper-thin towel hanging next to the sink and gets back to the room without another glance to the mirror. He knows he probably hasn’t fixed much. 

The room is both alarmingly cold and alarmingly empty and for a second Kevin is sure Jean has grabbed his car keys and drove back to Virginia dropping him in a motel in the middle of nowhere. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do. Wait until he’s gone to avoid every possible conflict and then quietly go back where he’s supposed to be. Let him damn himself on his own. 

But then he notices the balcony door open and, taking a couple steps towards it, sees Jean sitting on it’s floor. Hunched over himself, eyes firm on the sky, the slight tremors that course through him the only movement breaking the absolute peace of the scene. Kevin hadn’t even looked at the sky since they left the highway but now he sees what caught Jean’s attention. The stars shine bright and clear above them. Sharp like they never can be in the middle of a city. He’s not sure when he saw stars like this for the last time, probably in some night fly for an away game. He has never paid them much attention even though Jean has always been fascinated with them.

He’s brought out of any possible reminiscence when Jean curls onto a tighter ball at what he guesses is a particularly cold wind blow, and before he knows it he’s tearing the comforter away from the bed and carrying it to the balcony. He dumps it onto Jean’s lap unceremoniously and ignores the look of absolute bewilderment on his face as he goes back inside to grab the comforter from the other bed and both pillows and drag it all with him. He drops the pillows and comforter on top of Jean too and starts arranging them immediately. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

“I saw it on tv once.” He says as explanation. He only saw it briefly on a christmas themed film when an older Raven had been surfing channels on the lounge before stopping on ESPN and he’s pretty sure it wasn’t enough to grasp the architectural intrinquisities of fort building. He’s not even sure it can be called a fort if you mount it in a balcony and without a roof, but to be honest he’s not that concerned on getting the details right. 

Jean inches towards the railing, problably more in an attempt to put some space inbetween them than actually trying to leave Kevin room to place the pillows at his back. Whichever the case he gets tired of Kevin’s one-handed incompetence soon enough and takes the pillow from him so he can arrange them properly. He wraps one of the comforters over his shoulders and extends the other over his legs. Once he deems his own work adequate he looks at Kevin expectantly while he holds the comforter away from the ground. 

Kevin is familiar enough with the look of annoyance and hastiness in his face but he can’t place exactly what brought it on this time until Jean sighs in pure exhasperation. 

“Are you going to sleep on a matress with no sheets, Kevin?” 

“Oh,” he feels hyper conscious of his body, the long limbs and the useless hand and the cold creeping inside his sweatshirt. “No, I wanted to sit here with you.” 

“So sit down.” 

It’s probably too sharp and rude to be called an invitation but Kevin feels welcomed in a way only Jean has made him feel since his mother’s death. Easy and without asking for anything in return. He sits down besides him and folds his legs in front of him. As Jean places the comforter over their legs, Kevin reaches with his right hand to wrap himself in the comforter Jean threw at his back. 

Once they’re done arranging themselves they sit under the blankets joined from shoulder to hip, leaning into each other and away from the cold. Jean throws his head back to stare at the stars drinking the sight with fervor. His paleness seems less sickly in this light. More delicate, suiting and willingly obtained. Maybe it’s just him not looking completely dead inside for the first time in years, but the gentle upward tug on the corner of his lips gives Kevin hope for just a little more.


	2. Will you walk the line, like it's there to choose (yeah)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol bet you thought I was dead. As always, english isn't my native language so sorry for whatever way I've managed to insult and deface it this time around. This took so ridiculously long because I've never written the foxes before and I honestly have no idea what I'm doing.

Palmetto State was at the same time too bright and too run down. The orange was too cheery and too everywhere but it distinctly lacked the slickness and newness everything at The Nest had. The paint in the walls was chirped here and there, the seats had lost their glossy varnish some time ago, the parking lot lines were fading into nothingness… It wasn’t much, individually, but all put together it reminded Jean of a depressed kid trying too hard to tell jokes and convince people they were ok. 

Although he had never personally set foot on their court because the Foxes had never qualified to play the Ravens, he had seen an increasing number of their games since Minyard unprecedently rejected Riko and Kevin and to add insult to injury joined that nonsensical mess that David Wymack insisted on calling a team. 

Given what he’d seen of the Palmetto campus after the Foxes somehow managed to make it to the quarterfinals and snatched some time on national tv and what he was familiar with at Edgar Allen the campus was oddly low-key. If it were possible to hold some kind of positive expectations about such a clusterfuck of self-destroying disasters he’d say he was disappointed. It all looks so normal, so subdued and common. The campus is half-deserted with students still home for the Christmas holidays and lacks all the banners, scarfs and posters that clouded the screen last time Jean saw it. 

He parks their stolen car near the stadium door and waits for Kevin’s trembling to subdue. He’s almost certain it’s panic but he’s been able to spend as much time as he wanted staring at the stars for the first time in years, so he’s willing to concede the possibility of a fever due to poor administering of the meds for his hand or falling asleep in a balcony in the winter. He’s completely certain the car has a gps ingrained and The Master knows exactly where they are and it’s been bugging him since he took to the interstate, but it’s not exactly like they could just abandon it anywhere nearby without it being blatantly obvious why they came to Palmetto at all. As usual, someone else made a mess too big for him to fix and he won’t be able to escape the consequences.

Kevin gets over it eventually and texts Wymack with slow fingers, not quite clumsy, but unaccustomed to flying over his smartphone’s keyboard. Jean gets off the car and leans on the closed door allowing the cold winter air to hit him right in the face. He makes a conscious effort to not think of all the foxes -violent, bitter, broken- waiting behind the stadium door ready to tear into them with their sharp edges. Half his ribs are still bruised and he’s sure he did a poor job of bandaging the swallow cuts riko left all over his stomach; he’s really not in the mood to get new injuries so soon. 

David Wymack was one of very few people Jean had met that were bigger than himself and he didn’t like it at all. He knows, of course, that height and strength were no requirement to abuse someone; but when he wakes up sweating at night with a scream dying in his throat, it’s the enormous hands of a college student twice his side that’s fresh on his mind. He takes a step back and let’s Kevin meet his unknowing father and start talking. It’s an easy rhythm for them. Kevin at the front, bright and important, while Jean diligently retreats to the shadows. Wymack is unaccustomed to say dance, though, and when Jean does his best to blend against the car’s door his eyes follow him. 

“Jean Moreau.” he says, surprisingly not butchering either word. He assesses him with a considering look and for one second Jean is sure he’s just going to turn back on them. After all, they are too much trouble. They’re not worth attracting the wrath of one of the most powerful criminal families in America. This man might be used to trouble but they are a whole different league. “Kevin explained a bit of the situation at the hotel but I’d like to talk to the both of you before we set anything down. Come to my office?” 

Kevin wanted to come here and there is literally nowhere else in the world Jean can go to, so they follow Wymack as he enters the stadium and guides them to his office. It’s absurdly bright. Full of white tile and more lights than it’s necessary, orange always lurking somewhere on the edge of Jean’s vision. It feels wrong in a different way than Evermore does. Back there, there’s so much void, so much black and darkness and nothingness that Jean can immediately justify the oppressive feeling in his chest. There’s none of that on the Foxhole court and yet his lungs are starting to burn all the same. 

Wymack drops on his desk chair with a sigh and takes a moment to just look at them standing like inconveniently placed statues at his office’s door. He waits a heartbeat like he isn’t sure what’s happening and then gestures with a wide arm movement to the chairs in front of him. Once they’re sitting he puts twin bottles of water in front of them and sighs again. He talks with an even voice and makes a point of looking them in the eyes and giving them time to think their answers through. And it’s fucking surreal. This is not how Jean’s life goes. But Kevin goes all out. He tells Wymack about Riko’s abuse, how he broke his hand when the talks of Kevin being better than him became too much. How he never acknowledged Jean was a human being to begin with. He tells Wymack about the yakuza and why Tetsuji Moriyama is truly feared as he is. In a most unusual considerate move, he makes sure his father understands exactly what he might be walking into. And then, 

“I’m sorry. I knew they wouldn’t come for me. Not like that. I can’t…” he doesn’t finish the sentence but both Wymack and Jean are aware of the hateful look he gives his left hand “...but I couldn’t leave Jean there. He can’t keep doing this. I couldn’t keep doing it. I looked the other way too many times. Even if it doesn’t mean anything now, I couldn’t do it again.”

Jean huffs something that would pass for a laugh in someone that knew how to do that and both men turn to look at him; Wymack tense and angry in a way no one has ever been on Jean’s behalf and Kevin shaken and teary-eyed, which is not an uncommon sight as of late. His chest has always been full of fire for Kevin Day. Bitterness and jealousy for his position, thankfulness and devotion for his only friend. As much as he’s sure it’ll never stop stinging to see Kevin love Exy so fiercely when Jean hates it just as much, most bad feelings he could harbor vanished as soon as the words ‘I told Wymack I wouldn’t leave without you’ left Kevin’s mouth. Because Jean didn’t even remember he was a person. But apparently Kevin hadn’t forgotten. 

“Don’t act like you could have actually helped.” He hears himself and notices the familial harshness in his voice. He knows to the untrained ear he sounds dismissfull and ungrateful. But Kevin and him can communicate in english and french and even just broken sobs in the dark. “As much as I’m sure it pains you, the world does not revolve around you and nearly nothing he did was because of you.” Some of it had been because of Kevin. A lot of it, actually. But none of it had been Kevin’s fault. Kevin could have stopped nothing of it. Not if he had played better, or worse, or not existed at all.

Kevin coughs a little and when he raises his head the brightness in his eyes is not due to tears but something warmer and much less physical. Wymack seems lost for a minute at the display but recovers quickly. Jean guesses with the kind of team he’s chosen to run, teenagers crying in his office must be quite the frequent sight. 

Wymack considers his words carefully and then tells it exactly how it is. He doesn’t have money to buy both of their contracts with Edgar Allen. He’ll talk about it with the University’s board because they are famous, semi-professional athletes and he’s sure they’ll understand what a profitable business deal that could be. He agrees Kevin’s input on the technical performance of the team could be really useful and calls Jean ‘the best backliner in the United States’. He promises an answer by the end of the day and arranges for the team’s nurse, Abby, to accompany Kevin to a doctor and physiotherapist and for Danielle Wilds to come keep Jean company.

The prospect of letting Kevin out of his sight and facing the foxes on his own makes Jean’s skin feel too hot and too cold at the same time, but he won’t argue with the only man that can offer a roof over his head at the moment. He has no doubt the Moriyama will kill him for the disobedience, for the lack of respect, for stealing himself from them. But he’d much rather not wander the streets, homeless and empty-pocketed until then. So he follows Wymack when he leads him to the team lounge and awkwardly hands him a tv remote, and he sits quietly and pretends Kevin going away isn’t sending his anxiety through the roof. After all, like all victims of abuse, his survival has always depended heavily on how well he could pretend nothing was wrong. 

Wymack comes back eventually followed by his team captain and Jean just stands up and faces her. Danielle Wilds isn’t particularly impressive. She wasn’t when Thea made them hush and watch a post-game interview with the first female Class I captain and she isn’t in person. But the steel in her eyes makes Jean brace himself all the same. 

She shakes his hand firmly and the strength of her grip makes Jean’s crooked fingers ache. He’s sure he could easily out power her and break her wrist in a move, but in the best case scenario she will be his new captain and he knows very well that the captain always has to win. It’s obvious that she’s not sure what to do with the news that two ravens flew The Nest and might be joining her team. That Kevin’s hand is broken. That there’s something they’re clearly running away from. It’s always easy, reading normal people. Normal people weren’t beaten with a bamboo cane if they showed sleepiness or displeasure. Normal people weren’t starved if their facial expressions didn’t match. 

“Have you had breakfast?” she asks. And Jean is not sure what he was expecting her to say but it certainly wasn’t that. He shakes his head. He doesn’t think the shitty machine coffee they got at the gas stop counts. “There’s a good café nearby. They have lots of healthy stuff, special menus for athletes and such. Come on.” 

She doesn’t talk much as they walk through the semi deserted campus. A couple of times she looks at him with decision but every time she shakes her head like she can’t make the words actually come out. It’s not until they’re sitting down and she’s looking at the menu with way too much attention for someone that goes there regularly that Jean understands what she’s doing. When he understands the tense line of her shoulders and the lack of words. He feels oddly antagonistic to someone that has been nothing but respectful and agreeable so far. Perhaps running for his life has him on edge. Perhaps he’ll virulently hate captains for as long as he’s alive, which isn’t guaranteed at all to be long. 

“I’m not going to be a problem to your team.” he says before she can speak again. About the food, or the place, or anything but the one thing that’s clearly on her mind. “Kevin’s insight will be immeasurably valuable to fill in the obvious strategic and analysis the Foxes lack and I am better than any backliner you have ever signed.” He’s not sure if he’s trying to reassure her or fight her. Maybe both at once. He does not care for exy and would banish it off the face of the earth if he could, but he won’t have someone doubting his ranking or his talent. Doubting the blood, tears, screams and sweat that went into making sure there was no one better than him at what he did. The captain of what is unarguably the worst team on the entire Class I division doesn’t have any right to have doubts about his game. 

Wilds seems startled for all of three seconds before she schools her features into calm determination. It’s not a bad press-face. But it’s not good enough. The set on her jaw too transparently lets him know that she clearly disagrees but is trying to not start a fight.

“I’m not worried about your game.” She says, raising a hand to signal a waiter their way, “No one can doubt you as players. I’m worried about you as people.” 

The waiter meets them before Jean can say anything. Wilds orders pancakes, fresh fruit and coffee, and then they both turn expectantly to him. Jean orders a black coffee and wholegrain toast and watches intently as the waiter leaves, counting the steps until she’s out of earshot. 

“You’ll have to admit two of best players on the best team on the league suddenly deserting and turning up at our door is pretty weird.” There’s no aggression on her eyes, no fire or wrath or promises of violence. The steel in them is cold and firm. Unmovable. “As you said, it’s clear that you’re much better than we are. So the question is what the fuck are you doing here?” 

“Kevin’s hand is broken.” He says, as if that explains everything. It does explain everything, if you know the details. If you know who broke it and why, which Wilds does not. 

“But yours isn’t. We wouldn’t be able to turn down Kevin Day if he offered technical assistance. But neither could any other team on the league. I can’t believe the Ravens didn’t want to keep him. But your hand isn’t broken. Your career isn’t done. And yet, you’re here discussing a contract that will most certainly bankrupt us to play on the worst team on Class I division. No one doubts your talent. But I’d have to be an idiot to not doubt your motives.”

It’s all so logical and well thought, so put together and rational, so absolutely missguided, that Jean is laughing before he fully realices. It’s probably been years since he has felt the need for full-on laughter. Sneers are encouraged. Bitter chuckles and cutting smiles are expected. But the kind of belly laughter that bubbles up your throat and makes your whole body shake is so rare it might as well be a foreign language that Jean hasn’t mastered yet. The last time he laughed like this is still clear on his mind. The doctor in The Nest purposefully not meeting his eye, filling up a prescription form for pain medication -just enough to dull the edge, never enough to make him drowsy on the court- in which he’s said to have broken two of his fingers accidentally getting them caught on a fireproof door. The fingers are on different hands and show multiple fractures and scars and it’s all so absurd and ill prepared but it doesn’t matter because no one is going to ask and Jean laughs in hysterics because this is his life and there’s no escaping it.

Wilds is definitely shocked this time. Doesn’t even try to hide it. Her face alternates from concerned and offended so fast that Jean laughs harder. It settles on concerned pretty fast, though, just as people are starting to give them weird looks and Jean thinks he might very well cry in a fucking campus cafeteria in front of a girl he was supposed to convince of his worth. He can deal with violence, abuse and torture, but apparently the mere unrealistic concept of having an escape is enough to completely unhinged him. Good to fucking know. 

He looks at her as the laughter dies down, soundless and mirthless but still shaking his shoulders as it gets out like poison, like bile. Wilds says nothing to him, but she makes a point of meeting any curious gaze wandering their way harshly enough that everyone decides to mind their own business. It’s probably more on behalf of her team’s reputation than him, but it’s a small mercy nonetheless and Jean makes a point of remembering every one of those. 

“It’s the team for second chances, isn’t it?” he says, still breathless and shaken “why the fuck should you get to decide who deserves one?”

The waiter comes back with their breakfast and drops a pastry with a smiley face on it by Jean’s side with a smile of her own. She has the nerve to look down at him with the kind of tender gaze most people reserve for endearing baby animals and squeeze his shoulder before she leaves. 

For the first time since he met her in person, Jean has no idea what Wilds is thinking. She’s not brazed for impact like she was before, but seems thoughtful in some sort of inaccessible way. She starts eating her fruit while looking at him, both actually seeing him and too busy with whatever is on her mind to really pay attention to him. 

“I don’t.” she says after what feels like a eternity, half helf fruit bowl gone, “Wymack does. But if you try to fuck my team over I’ll make sure you regret it.” Then, as if she hadn’t jus threatened him, she keeps going “You’ll probably have to room with the monsters, which is… less than ideal, obviously. We call them the monsters for a reason. But the upperclassmen’s room is full.” She sounds so different. Still firm, still sure. But… the threat is gone for her voice. Even if the distrust is still very obviously still there. Jean thinks he could get to like this warmer, gentler version of her not-fucking-around tone. He could certainly survive it. “Matt should be here any moment, anyhow. He’ll help you settle in. You’ll have to stay at Abby’s while they ready the dorm, anyway,”

“Where will Kevin stay?” 

Wilds looks mildly annoyed that he interrupted her mid-sentence but she takes another bit of fruit and answers him. 

“With Abby, probably. It’s not like we can pay for a flat or something.” 

Jean is absolutely certain Kevin and him will most definitely not be sleeping in different rooms, much less different buildings; but he says nothing. He learned to pick his battles long ago. Arguing is ineffective. Specially when you don’t have the right to have an opinion in the first place. When the time comes to move to the dorms, Kevin will probably come with. And they’ll share a bed or take turns on the sofa or sleep on the fucking floor. But pissing off Wilds beforehand won’t do him any good. 

“Sure, sorry.” 

She looks appeased enough with the apology which probably speaks miles about how rude and unruly her teammates usually are. Riko would have made him beg. And begging would surely not have been enough. He would have hold a knife in Jean’s mouth and threatened to cut his tongue. He would… He’s not here. He’s not an immediate danger in the way that Wilds is. She is what Jean should be paying attention to, because they already started on the wrong footing and she’ll be his captain until he either dies or graduates, whichever comes first. So he does a quick recap of everything she’s said and not said. Of how she reacts to words, how she walks, how she speaks, how she thinks. 

“So, tell me about them.” He tries for nonchalant. He has enough practice faking that. Not caring, not knowing, not existing on the edge of a psychological breakdown. 

Wilds gives him a once over and a disbelieving eyebrow rises towards her hair. 

“You don’t know our stats?” She asks reclining further on her seat. Putting up some distance, taking up more space. Always ‘ours’ and not ‘theirs’. 

“I know their stats.” he confirms, delivering the conversation exactly where he wanted it to be. He knows he’s not wrong about this. “Tell me about them.”

The left corner of her mouth twitches upwards and she doesn’t fight the half-smile that illuminates her face. She still looks like she could drag him to an alleyway and beat the shit out of him, but the smile makes it seem more like a charming aesthetic than a real threat. 

Of course, Jean will never make the mistake of trusting a smile ever again in his life; but he feels like he at least has a vague idea of what she wants from him. Luckily for both of them, he’s oh so very good at dancing at other people’s music. If Wilds wants him to care for her pack of beasts he’ll play the part like the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for dropping by and giving me the time of your day! I hope you enjoyed your time and it'd be absolutely lovely if you'd leave a review on your way out <3 Feel totally welcomed to drop by my tumblr: phereinnike.tumblr.com 
> 
> Let me know what you thought of my Dan and tune in for next chapter to see Kevin's first impression working with the Foxes and his & Jean's first night in Columbia!

**Author's Note:**

> What Kevin says in the car translates in english to: “Take the next exit to a hotel. It’s not safe to drive for so long without stopping.” Thanks a lot to Y for translating it for me <3
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed your time and it'd be absolutely lovely if you'd leave a review on your way out <3 Feel totally welcomed to drop by my tumblr: phereinnike.tumblr.com
> 
> Just in case you weren't expecting it, it is very possible that future chapters contain: heavy drinking, heavier psychological trauma, an unholy ammount of swear words, a brief affair with drugs, self loathing.
> 
> It is just as likely that I'll manage to sneak in: begrunding halloween costumes, clumsy christmas gift giving, reluctant chocolate drinking, background renisson, matt & dan and andreil; eventual jerejean, Jean and Renee friendship, two heavily traumatised boys destroying Riko and his dream and learning how to be happy. 
> 
> And of course there's a guaranteed happy ending.


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